I'd so much as sworn off F. Scott Fitzgerald after a reading of The Great Gatsby several years ago that left me disgusted with the characters, but then over the weekend I met someone with a line from This Side of Paradise tattooed across her shoulder blade. I figured that if it was that important for someone there must be something to it! Truth be told, there were moments that were really beautiful; and overall it's an honest and accessible study on the struggles of youth that are so often treated with dismissal or melodrama. I enjoyed it, and find hope in the fact that Amory has much more life ahead of him even on the last page. I'm hoping to continue to find that there's more to FSF than first met the eye.